You Should Have Asked Me For It
by Youhavesuchprettywords
Summary: Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson have been best friends since they started at Dalton. But after fours years together, things begin to change between them when the lines between friends and lovers get steadily thinner. AU!
1. I Hope All My Days Are Lit By Your Face

Hi there! Well I decided that I just needed to write myself a Klaine fic, because I just love them sooooo damn much.

So here is "You Should Have Asked Me For It", a multi-chapted AU fic.

Essentially, just imagine out boys at Dalton, but without knowing they are gay.

Enjoy,

B.

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><p><strong>Prologue - I Hope All My Days Are Lit By Your Face<strong>

If you asked Kurt Hummel who his best friend was, he'd nail you with a solid bitch glare as he rolled his eyes. And really, that would be the correct answer. No one _asked_ Kurt Hummel who the most important person in his life was, everyone just _knew_.

Everyone had known since his very first day at Dalton when he was set up to room with Blaine Anderson and within minutes they were chattering each other's ear off about Disney and Vogue magazine and foreign movies. For two young boys who had very rarely gotten an opportunity to be themselves around other boys their age, the gift of meeting each other was one they clung to fervently. In the four years since then, Blaine and Kurt had been inseparable. When one was looking for one of them, you would always find him at the other boy's shoulder, or standing next to him, and chatting in his ear.

But it was more than just a physical closeness borne from spending every minute together that united the boys and made them truly the best of friends.

Within a week of meeting, they had confided to each other why each of them had found themselves within the safe and secure walls of Dalton. And from that moment, that baring of souls, they wound themselves tightly into each other's lives. It was in a subtle way, shocking them occasionally with how powerfully they needed and relied on each other.

They were important years, those four years that changed them from small twelve year old boys to sixteen year old men. Endless things had happened in those four years, but none of that was important.

What is important, and is something you need to remember, is that during those four years, Blaine always had Kurt and Kurt always had Blaine.

You need to remember this because things change. Things always change. People grow older and grow apart because things change and the world is relentless in it's orbit of the sun. Remember though, how much they meant to each other in those four years, how much they loved each other. You'll need it.


	2. Sweet Dreams

**A/N: Hi again :)**

**Just thought I'd let you know that each of these chapter titles comes for the song I used as the inspiration for the title. This one is, obviously, "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)", especially the Emily Browning cover. The Prologue's song was "Atlantic" by Keane. I will probably be posting these on my Tumblr if you'd like to listen to them there. (link is on my author page)**

**B**

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><p><strong>Chapter One – Sweet Dreams<strong>

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a pool of gold. As he focused he could see the hazel flecks swimming lazily in Blaine's eyes. It didn't occur to him to be confused or startled as to why Blaine was so close to him. They were extensions of each other. It wasn't the first time he'd woken up with some part of Blaine pressed into his face. There was that memorable time when Blaine had decided to climb into his bed in the middle of the night and Kurt awoke with Blaine's toe twitching on his cheek.

So Kurt wasn't concerned when he woke up to Blaine blinking owlishly at him. He opened his mouth to calmly tell him to get back in his own bloody bed, and Blaine swiftly shoved his tongue down his throat.

It was messy and wet and hot and so good and so very unexpected. In the back of his mind, Kurt knew that he should be doing several things right now, namely stop kissing his best friend and ask why on earth Blaine woke up and decided to be gay, but none seemed nearly as important as the warm body on top of him breathing hot air into his mouth.

Moments seemed endless as they kissed, tongues battling despite their inexperience and hands roving of their own accord. It was a heady swim of emotion and feeling and the taste of Blaine and the soft moans they were both giving off and nothing quite punctured that haze until Blaine shoved his hand down Kurt's pajama pants.

It was as if the fabulous fog of making out that had crept in his brain was blown away and all he could think was _oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god OH MY GOD MY BEST FRIEND HAS HIS HAND ON MY DICK._

He tried to form words to tell Blaine to stop, that he didn't have to do this, that oh god if he didn't do something right now he would die; but all that escaped his lips was a small breathless whimper.

His best friend grinned from above him as if Kurt had just told him a good joke, instead just whimpered like a whore and thrust up into his hand a little. Licking his lips, Blaine rocked back on his heels and finally bought his fingers to form a fist around Kurt's erection.

He nearly lost it right there and then, with the warm circle surrounding him and Blaine's conceited grin.

He lay there paralysed, utterly confused and terrified of moving even an inch, lest it create friction and make him lose control.

Kurt Hummel was always in control. Always.

From above him, Blaine smirked like he could hear Kurt's thoughts and twisted his wrist just a tiny tiny bit. That tiny tiny bit of movement felt like agony and bliss all wrapped up in one to Kurt.

"Just let go."

At Blaine's whisper, he felt the fear and resistance melt out of him. Blaine's smirk softened into a genuine smile as Kurt finally began to leisurely thrust into Blaine's hand, closing his eyes and letting the sensations wash over him.

It was easy, he vaguely thought, easy to be like this with Blaine. The questions he had before didn't matter. He trusted everything he was to this man, and if that meant that occasionally he was going to wake up and end up with Blaine jerking him off, so be it. That was the price of their friendship.

And what a price it was.

He could feel it starting, the familiar build up when everything in his body started being unable to take it anymore. He could feel the tensing, the gentle wave of shivers that worked their way around his body. His hips started stuttering in their thrusts, so close that all bets were off. Finally, in moments that seems stretched out and endlessly repeating, he came, muffling his whimpers by biting his lip.

"Happy Birthday," Blaine said as he pulled his hand away and got off the bed.

Kurt opened his eyes for the first time it what seemed like eons. Blaine, once again, was staring intently at him.

"You okay, Kurt?" He looked nervous and confused, one hand relentlessly pushing through his hair.

Kurt fought the temptation to teasingly reply and just shrugged. "Yeah. Why?"

Blaine bit his lip. "Well you were just like whimpering and moaning in your sleep just before. I wanted to check you were okay. Happy birthday, by the way." Then he was off Kurt's bed and traipsing to the shower, leaving him alone with a growing realisation and sticky sheets.

Fuck.


	3. I Wouldn't Sacrifice Anything At All

**AN. Ohmigosh I am so sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up. I've had assignments this week and no internet, so I haven't been able to post, even if the chapter was ready. I really do apologise.**

**I am so thankful that so many people are reviewing/alerting/favouriting my story already. Everytime I get one of those emails I do a little happy dance and say something along the lines of "Oh you like me, you really like me!"**

**I have had a couple of questions about the series, which I've tried to answer without spoiling anything, but hopefully this chapter will clear up a few of those, especially about Blaine's sexuality and how he came to be at Dalton.**

**Also, this chapter is from Blaine's PoV. That should be pretty self-explainatory and they will go back and forth between PoVs, but usually on a alternate chapter basis.**

**The chapter song is "Stories of Old" by Depeche Mode, a fabulous same-sex attraction song in my mind. As always, you can check it out on my Tumblr www[dot]youhavesuchprettywords[dot]tumblr[dot]com**

**Sorry for that hella long AN. Read onwards, my pretties.**

**B**

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><p><strong>Chapter Two - I Wouldn't Sacrifice Any Thing At All For Love<strong>

For Blaine, it started on Kurt's birthday. He'd been up early, planning all the ways he could wake Kurt up and surprise him. He was trying to decide between throwing a pillow at his head and loudly singing him "Happy Birthday" a la Marilyn Monroe when Kurt has first moaned.

It was a low sound, breathless and quiet. Concerned, Blaine looked up and began to watch for signs of distress, ready to wake him the second he seemed to be too upset. He watching for tears or fitful tossing. Instead, what he saw was Kurt rhythmically thrusting his hips up and whimpering softly.

He tore his eyes away, blushing fiercely. They had lived together for almost four years by now; four very important years if you were thinking about the physical development of boys; but somehow they had always managed to avoid this situation.

Blaine was a teenage boy - looking at linoleum turned him on - but he always just assumed that Kurt wasn't the same or was maybe just better at hiding it. He never really thought about it. He had no reason to.

But now Kurt was here, only feet away from him, moaning and thrusting, obviously in the throe of a _very _pleasant dream, and it was impossible to not think about it. Impossible not of think of Kurt's hand wrapped around his cock as Blaine was doing the same in the shower. Or maybe, _maybe_, when Kurt took his shower before Blaine, he jerked off there, so that when Blaine got in, even though he never knew, he was stepping into a shower that was warm and wet and fragrant and _dirty_.

Okay, there was no way that thought should have made him shiver with a hot thrill of desire. That was just bizarre. And wrong.

Wrong.

Hot.

But wrong.

Suddenly, across the room, Kurt's hips were snapping up rapidly while broken moans tore themselves from his throat. Blaine couldn't look away, even though his face was flaming red and he was very uncomfortable. There was something mesmerising in the movement in his hips, the way he was straining up and up and always up.

Then, it all stopped, with a muffled whimper as Kurt bit his lips, eyes screwed shut, but head somehow pointing to where Blaine sat in the bed, panting lightly.

Blaine licked his lips, counted to five and then walked over to Kurt, waking him up.

He couldn't really tell you if he actually had a conversation with Kurt. There was only one thing on his mind and as unashamedly as he could, he hurried to their bathroom, threw the shower on and had one hand on his aching cock before the water was even warmed. Seconds later he was coming with a cry, Kurt's face floating in front of him.

In the weeks since then, Blaine had been plagued with the dreams. It wasn't unusual for him to wake in the morning with an erection that just would not quit, and never before had he been ashamed of what he thought was just the normal actions of a sixteen year old boy. But in all his previous dreams, there had never been a face. It had never mattered what he was thrusting into, or whose mouth or whose hand it was. None of that was important, because those dreams had never made into his real life like this. But now, he woke up and saw Kurt. He saw Kurt in his classes, in his meal times, when he studied and before he finally went to sleep. And then, behind his closed eyes and in the safety of his subconscious, he saw Kurt again. He saw Kurt panting and crying and sweating and touching Blaine. He was always touching Blaine. He would wake after these dreams and inevitably see Kurt again. The cycle repeated.

It was too much for him.

"Blaine, are you okay?"

Kurt's voice was timid and confused as he finally cornered Blaine in the library one day.

In his mind, Blaine hadn't been avoiding Kurt so much as just no longer searching him out whenever they were apart. It'd been a week probably, since they had seen each other out of class and their dorm. So it wasn't like he was _actually_ avoiding Kurt. Well, at least, he thought so.

Kurt evidently didn't agree, if the frown and sad eyes were anything to go by. If there was one thing Blaine couldn't stand, it was Kurt's beautiful eyes all sad and glistening with tears. He turned to his books on the desk, speaking to them as he cheerfully replied, "Yeah, i'm great. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh. I just thought that something might be wrong because we haven't seen much of each other lately." Kurt sat in front of him on the desk, arms folded, but with worry still in his eyes.

Blaine winced a little at the bare hurt in Kurt's voice. He was right. It was completely unusual that they weren't attached at the hip. But how was he supposed to tell him the real reason why they hadn't been spending every waking moment together? How do you tell your best friend that you wanted to be around him less because every night you dreamed about having sex with him and it was driving you crazy and you were horny and frustrated and most of all terrified of what it all meant? It wasn't something that rolled off the tongue with ease.

But Kurt was still across from him, wanting an answer. If Blaine didn't tell him something, he would never hear the end of it, and quite frankly, he missed just spending time with Kurt. Even when they were doing nothing, just having his presence there would give Blaine this feeling of peace and happiness that he had never felt before he had come to Dalton.

_The outside of Dalton, while impressive and huge, still wasn't nearly as grand as the Anderson's house. His father was fond of telling Blaine this. It was almost the only thing they spoke about in the entire twelve years of Blaine's life. It was always "You'll do so well at Dalton" and "Dalton is the perfect school for Andersons" and even occasionally "Dalton has made me a better man, son. That's why you are going to go there as soon as you are old enough". _

_Blaine should have been looking forward to it. He should have wanted to get out of his huge and always empty house with no one but the housekeeper keeping him company. He should have been excited to make friends here at this new school. But deep down, so deeply that he didn't even know it existed, Blaine was cynical. Elementary school had been full of light and colour and music and he still hadn't found any friends. How was he supposed to make friends in this huge building that reminded him all too much of his cold and loveless home?_

_All too soon his father was pushing him into the wide halls, their shoes thumping on the marble, as Blaine's mother's heels clacked loudly. It was an oppressive sound, Blaine thought, the shoes on hard floors. Everything is his house was hard and cold and made too much noise. Blaine didn't want Dalton to be like his home. He didn't want his life to just be endless cold buildings and people taking up space, placeholders in his life. Closeted in his melancholy, he didn't hear his parents talk to the staff, assigning him to a room. They shuffled up the marble hall, up staircases, across thankfully carpeted hallways and stopped outside a door._

_"This is your room Blaine," a kindly secretary he couldn't recall meeting said. "You'll be rooming with Mr Kurt Hummel."_

_At this, his parents murmured quick goodbyes and shoved him towards the door, towards his new home._

_The door opened and suddenly he was face to face with a boy, about his age, with a beautiful face and stunning eyes._

"_Hi."_

_The new boy had smiled at him and for the first time in a long time, Blaine smiled too._

Kurt was the first person in his life to give him any love, to ever make him laugh til his sides felt like they were splitting and his cheeks were sore. He was his brother, his best friend. His everything, really.

So Blaine decided that he needed to have Kurt with him somehow or he was going to go to mad and while he couldn't tell the whole truth, maybe he could tell just enough to make everything better.

"To be honest, i've kinda just been needing time to myself. I've been thinking. I think i want a girlfriend."

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><p><strong>Dun dun dun.<strong>

**(Sorry, couldn't help myself)**


	4. Unsettle My Heart

**A/N. As always, I apologise for how long it's taking to get these chapters up, especially since they are so short. I would love to say that I can give ya'll a chapter a week, but I know if I say that things will go wrong. Just know that this story is not even close to done and I am definitely going to finish it. It's just taking a while at the moment coz I'm setting it all up for when everything changes. So thank you for sticking by me.**

**The song for this chapter is "Unsettle My Heart" by the Boat People and their lyric "everyone here is in love with everyone else here" is perhaps one of the most apt things I have ever heard.**

**B**

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><p><strong>Chapter Three – Unsettle My Heart<strong>

Kurt wasn't exactly sure why the words "I think I want a girlfriend" coming out Blaine's mouth made him want to simultaneously vomit, cry, bang his head on the table and piss himself laughing, but god, did he want to. He compromised on all the conflicting emotions and just responded with "Oh?" and a raised eyebrow. Blaine had just nodded and the conversation was dropped with an awkward smile and rustling of homework.

That was weeks ago, and true to his word, Blaine had started dating.

First it was Kate, a gorgeous girl who was quick to smile and even quicker to shoot heart-eyes at Blaine. She lived down the road from the Anderson's, and in a brief flash of caring, they had set the two teens up. They had gone out to dinner in a swish restaurant nearby Dalton. Sitting cross legged on Kurt's bed, Blaine had told him about how they had discussed politics and the future over linguine, past dating experience over desert. But Blaine protested that she was too eager to please and she just didn't captivate him.

Then there was Ari. She seemed to be the polar opposite of Kate; loud, boisterous, entirely unconcerned of her appearance in that freeing and sexy way. Ari had lasted almost two entire weeks of phone calls between classes and dinners on weekends. Kurt wasn't positive, but he thought that Ari was probably the most crucial to Blaine. There was a marked difference in him after they stopped seeing each other. A glow. A confidence that scared and thrilled Kurt in equal measures.

Most recently it was Megan. Kurt couldn't even find it within himself to notice anything about her. The endless documenting of his best friend's harem was making him weary.

The girls had been paraded in front of him at the coffee house. It was never the dorm, that was still Kurt's domain, but it still felt off to have them anywhere near the life that Kurt and Blaine shared.

He couldn't pin it down quite yet, why the entire idea just made Kurt feel wrong. It put him off his food and kept him up at night. He didn't sing in the shower and he was slower to laugh. It was like there was something sick in their life. And that's what it was, _their_ life. Dalton, the dorm, their friendship, _themselves_; they had belonged to each other for too many years. Now, anything else even trying to belong felt like a parasite. Parasites with shiny hair and red lips that Blaine kissed when he thought Kurt wasn't looking.

They never had time anymore. Outside of class, Blaine was with whatever girl of the week, either at the coffee house, or on the phone, whispering softly in crowded hallways. Kurt only saw him in the dorm, where Blaine, bright-eyed, told him about her. Kurt sat through these meetings, nodding at the appropriate moments and trying futilely to ignore that Blaine was talking about these women who were taking him away from him.

Lying in his bed at night, Kurt tried to find what it was that was so devastatingly wrong. Was it just that Blaine was dating? They had never had girlfriends before, Kurt knew that, but had he honestly expected that they would never date anyone? No, that wasn't the problem. While he was jealous and sad that he didn't get Blaine's undivided attention any more, it didn't explain away the wrong feeling.

Drifting off to sleep, he thought about the girls. He thought about Blaine. He thought aboht them all.

_In the dream they were all in the coffee house; him, Blaine, Ari, Megan and Kate. The entire place was packed with people, all ridiculously gorgeous, and all straining desperately to touch Blaine. The five of them sat around a table, sipping coffees, while every single person in the shop fought their way through the writhing crowd, touched Blaine once, and headed out the door. The door never closed, forced open by the constant stream of people leaving and people coming to touch Blaine. The girls at the table fawned over him; Kate playing endlessly with his curls, Megan running french manicured nails over Blaine's forearm, Ari sitting in his lap, grinding every so often. They kept coming, boys and girls, old and young, touching him shyly, darting away like their life's mission was complete once they had touched him. Through all of this, Blaine sat still and smiled at Kurt. Kate dug her hands in Blaine's hair and pulled his head backward. Megan started digging those perfect nails into his skin and wrenched his arms apart. And Ari, beautiful and somehow terrible Ari, looked Kurt directly in the eyes, tossed her hair over her shoulder and started a fierce bucking rhytmn against Blaine's hips._

_Still, despite the way directions he was pulled and the people still endlessly touching him, he stared unwavering at Kurt. He smiled, once, beautiful and heartbreaking, then said " enough". They stopped. The girls ceased touching him, and with nothing except a grin from Ari, walked calmly out the door with the crowd. The door slammed as they left Kurt and Blaine alone._

Light peeked underneath the door that Blaine had just shut in anger. His frown ceased when he saw Kurt squinting at him, startled out of his dream.

"Shit." A hand through his hair. "Did I wake you up?"

Groaning and stretching, Kurt replied, "No, i'm clearly still asleep. What's up?"

Blaine bit his lip and shrugged. "Megan just called me to yell abuse in my ear. Something about not caring about her and stringing her along. Whatever. We broke up."

"On to see what's behind door number four then, are you?" Kurt asks wrly. The dream comes back to him, the crowd surging to touch Blaine. There was no doubt that there was a person alive who wouldn't come if Blaine crooked his finger at them.

"Nope." He flopped down on his bed and smiled at Kurt. "You're stuck with me for a while."

And then he smiled, and suddenly Kurt knew what he'd been trying to work out for weeks. He knew why it was wrong that Blaine was dating these girls.

He only ever smiled at Kurt like that.

He didn't think he had ever realised it before, but they both had a whole range of emotions and actions and phrases and expressions just for each other. They were separated into boxes, the both of them, the parts of themselves that everyone got to see and the parts that only they got to see of each other.

Kurt could tell you everything about Blaine. Ask him any question about Blaine and he'd reply more thoroughly and articulately than Blaine himself could. That's what happened when another person was your entire life.

That was why it was wrong. Because Kurt knew something Blaine didn't. No matter how, or no matter when, Kurt and Blaine would be each other's lives forever. Other people just didn't figure into that. They would be old and still know every inch of each other like they used to when they didn't know themselves.

"Blaine?" he whispered across the gaps in the beds.

There was no reply except a quiet snuffle.

"I'm going to love you forever."


	5. This Chaos is Killing Me

**A/N: I would apologise for the lateness of this chapter but I think you all just want to read it so I'll shush.**

**Song is "Hallo Spaceboy" by David Bowie and Pet Shop Boys. Really, listen to it. It's a perfect Blaine song.**

**It gets interesting next chapter.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Four - This Chaos is Killing Me<strong>

Living with Kurt Hummel was turning out to be hell. And when Blaine said "hell", he didn't mean in a pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity kind of hell, unfortunately. No, he meant an endless torment of pale skin and breathy sighs and blue eyes and thoughts that made him wish to claw out his brain and still keep sinning enough to keep the torture going forever.

If he had known this is what would happen if he were to ever happen across his roommate having a sex dream, he would have insisted on a single room four years ago. Or maybe he never would have come to Dalton, never would have met Kurt and then he wouldn't be going through what he was at the moment.

But no, all he would have to do is see Kurt when he smiled at him and he took back all of "what ifs" and he knew, given the opportunity, he would never ever ever take back meeting Kurt Hummel and the delicious temptation that went with it.

He had thought, weeks ago, that he had worked it all out. His problem was the same problem any other sixteen year old boy in all boys school had - he was horny. Simple problem, simple solution. All he needed to do was to get some and then all these dreams and stray thoughts and the goddamn inconvenient boners would just go away.

He knew that it might upset Kurt to not be the number one person inBlaine's life anymore, but if it was that or Blaine doing something to ruin their relationship forever, even a drama queen like Kurt would take coming second. So, confident that he wouldn't lose his best friend in the endeavour, Blaine started dating.

At first it worked. He wasn't interested in Kate at all, but curled up on the end of the bed, bitching about her to Kurt was somehow the closest he had felt to him since Kurt's birthday. And then, for a couple of days, the dreams stopped. But they always came back, leaving Blaine to wake up with sticky sheets and an enormous sense of guilt.

Then came Ari who, with a startling lack of preamble and occasion, he fucked in the back seat of his dad's car. It was good, nothing to write home about, and for a while, the sex stopped the dreams.

It was a brief respite in what was proving to be an agonising juggle between keeping Kurt in his life and keeping him out of his dreams. It probably would have been easy to throw himself more wholeheartedly into his relationship with Ari is he wasn't so addicted to the dreams. No matter how guilty and conflicted he felt when he woke up, those endless moments within the dream that he spent with Kurt were undeniably the best part of his day.

He would spend his spare moments in class staring off into space, imagining that he was in his dorm room staring as Kurt stripped off in front of him. He could see the perfect way he'd bite his lip and look down, shy and ashamed under his gaze. He could see the way he'd turn his head to the side with a little disbelieving laugh as Blaine reassured him he was gorgeous. He wouldn't believe it, but Blaine would make him believe it as he peppered soft kisses onto his cheek and the exposed neck until he'd get distracted by the scar on his neck which he'd lave with his tongue before sucking a dark spot into the skin, marking it in a way that would drag a delicious moan from Kurt and really, that would be the start of all.

Maybe it wasn't the best use of his time in class, but really, how was he supposed to focus on his History lesson with his best friend next to him biting his lip in such an effortlessly sexy way?

Come to think about it, the problems weren't the dreams at all. Dreams were dreams. You weren't conscious and you weren't in control. Nobody could stop dreaming even if they wanted to. No, the problem was the day time thoughts. Like when he was sitting on Kurt's bed, talking about his date with Kate and all he could think about was how much better it would have been with Kurt. Or, the fact that when he was Ari, he could only see Kurt's face underneath him. Or, even worse, the fact that he couldn't remember his current girlfriend's name. All he knew was it didn't start with K. Unfortunately that left him with 25 other letters. Which, when you thought about it - which he definitely didn't - was a fuck load of letters.

So then, when whatshername dumped him, he was less surprised as he was frustrated enough to finally take this as a sign that maybe it wasn't working. Girls were far too much work and they weren't even stopping the dreams so really, what was the point?

His slammed door work Kurt up and after some witty banter where Blaine was definitely not looking at the strip of exposed stomach - and beside, why did Kurt have to be so switched on all the time? He just woke up and is still more intelligent than Blaine - he favours him with a smile and tried to sleep, resigning himself to the inevitable dreams.

What Blaine doesn't expect is to be lying awake hours later, watching Kurt snore softly. Normally at this stage of the night Blaine would be getting lucky right about now, but he's currently just mesmerised. He watches the movement of Kurt's chest and he loves the soft rise and fall. He loves the way his lips fall open with a soft pop and glimmer wetly (although, he will admit, that thought was only briefly innocent. What are you gonna do?) He loves the way Kurt tucks his hand under his chin, like he would if he were five years old and holding a stuffed toy.

The thing that keeps Blaine up isn't just that he's transfixed and busy listing the things he loves about Kurt sleeping; it's that word. His mind uses it so casually and calmly and it's only when he thinks about it does he realise he should have freaked out that the word waas even close to be associated with Kurt. See, Kurt is the one who loves things. He _loves_ scarfs. He _loves_ Vogue. He _loves_ herbal tea. He _loves_ (secretly, of course) watching the Dalton football team play. Blaine, he doesn't love. He just likes. If he thinks about it, he can't ever recall saying he loved _something_, let alone _someone_. And it's that more than anything that convinces him. That maybe, it's not just dreams. That being sexually repressed isn't his problem. That maybe, it's more than that.

Before he can scare the shit out of himself and have a breakdown (which he knows is inevitable), he makes a quick plan, rolls over and sleeps dreamlessly.


	6. Kisses Burn Like Fire

**Chapter Five – Kisses Burn Like Fire**

Kurt had exactly nine hours of peace before his life changed forever. That may sound dramatic, but when he thinks back on this day – as he will for the rest of his life – he does pinpoint it as the turning point for everything that follows.

It starts off like a normal day. He gets up at 7:30, pads off to the shower, and starts to get changed. It's a Thursday, and Blaine is already gone from his bed, probably in the library studying.

He doesn't see Blaine for the rest of the day, but since it is approaching finals, he assumes that they keep missing each other as they travel around the school.

It's 4 o'clock before Kurt gets to sit down and think. To anybody who would come into the room, it would look like Kurt was immersed in his History essay (which he probably should be). But he wasn't. He was busy trying out words in his head.

_Gay._

_I'm gay._

For the last two months, Kurt had been avoiding this very thing. He couldn't even say the words in his mind until now. It wasn't that Kurt was in denial or was afraid of being gay. Since he had that dream he had pretty much accepted that fighting it was a moot point. Dreaming about having sex with a boy - let alone your straight but absolutely gorgeous room mate and best friend - was pretty conclusive evidence in Kurt's mind. So the months of skirting mentally around the g word wasn't from fear. Well, it was, but it was fear of change. Fear of how complicated his life was now, inevitably, going to be. There was nothing easy about being gay, especially not in small town Ohio. He had a list somewhere back in the dorm of the things he would need to do if he finally got to the stage where he can say it. Things like "tell dad", "watch porn" and "kiss a boy" were on his list. But first up, he had to say it to himself and then Blaine.

_I think I am gay._

When he thought about it, they were small little words. They shouldn't be harder to say than antidisestablishmentarianism, but it was. Three little letters, and he knew, the second he said them out loud, everything changes. Even in his head, each letter was enormous.

_G…A…Y…_

It was fitting somehow that it ended in Y. It was a question. _Why me? Why now? Why didn't I know this earlier?_

If he was honest with himself, he knew exactly "why now". It was probably actually a matter of "why is it so important to say it now? Why can't you wait until high school is over and your life really starts? Why do you need to deal with this now?" And again, he had the answer. Blaine.

It was so important for Kurt to understand and accept himself because he had a very strong suspicion that he wasn't as alone as he thought he might be. Ever since he had finally put his finger on what he felt was wrong with Blaine dating, it had made so much sense to him. So yeah, maybe that was only last night, but it was one of those revelations that suddenly turns the world up the right way and fills in all the gaps. It was knowledge that you've always had, only you ignored it and it sat, waiting for the right moment to flood your senses and make everything change. It was Blaine's smile that was the catalyst for the entire realisation. That smile that was unlike any of the ones Blaine gave to their other friends and teachers and even his girlfriends. It was only ever for him.

So yes, Kurt let himself think that maybe Blaine was going through the same thing as him. That maybe, Blaine was sitting in their room right now thinking about Kurt and maybe spelling those three letters to himself as well. Somehow, the thought that Blaine was going through the same thing, being as scared as him, made Kurt want to be strong. He wanted to be the strong one in this, the one who could take the other boy's hand and make everything okay. But that started with those three letters.

"Gay. I think I'm gay."

Silence. He was alone in the library.

"I'm gay."

The thing is, it sounded right out loud. It sounded like his name, that sure and such a part of him. The second he says it, Kurt suddenly isn't sure how he hasn't been saying it for years. It was like finally taking a deep breath after only shallow ones. It was overwhelming and it hurt just the slightest bit, but it was good. It was right.

_I'm gay_.

Kurt sighed. Step one, the biggest step, was over. He had said it to himself and out loud. Now he could start in with his list. Now he just needed Blaine to walk through that door.

He could see it in his head, the way it'll go. He'll tell Blaine that he's gay and Kurt will be so scared. Blaine will be silent for a while, then close his eyes and sigh. "I'm not going to treat you any different," Blaine will say, then he will surge forward quickly and grab Kurt's hand, "I think I might be too." Kurt will be shocked (although not really) and Blaine will start to babble because he needs to talk about it. Kurt will let him talk, but Blaine will say something too close to freaking out and Kurt will make him stop. Maybe he'll kiss him, maybe he's just tell him to shut up. Kurt doesn't want to plan that far. Plans only ever dissolve when you say them out loud.

Kurt is in the middle of repeating, "I'm gay" to himself silently when Blaine finally walks through the door and shuts it quietly behind him. Kurt watches as Blaine presses his palms to the door a fraction longer than needed, watches as Blaine closes his eyes and swallows.

Suddenly Kurt is nervous too, the words enormous in his mouth. He never gets to speak them though, because Blaine is marching across the room to him. He's not going to stop, so Kurt walks backwards as Blaine comes near him closer and closer and then suddenly Kurt's back is to the book shelves.

If his brain was working, he would see it all coming and maybe he would have hide time to prepare. But his mind is stuck on an endless loop of "I'm gay" and nothing else can get through. Blaine put his hands on the books on either side of Kurt's head. _I'mgayi'mgayi'mgay._

One of those hands seems to move of it's own accord and lands softly on his cheek, the thumb stroking circles on his jawline.

_I'mgayi'mgayi'mgayi'mgayi'mgayi'mgay._

Blaine's eyes flutters closed as he moves that last fraction closer.

_I'mg…_

Suddenly, lips are on his and Kurt is nowhere near thinking anything.

Kurt will never know how that kiss was supposed to go. In the future, he will think that Blaine planned a chaste kiss. But all he knows is what the kiss is.

It's hot and wet and fierce and there is no working up to it by soft pressure then opening their mouths then introducing tongue. It's straight into it, making out passionately and furiously against the wall. It's like waking up halfway into a kiss and Kurt briefly thinks that he wants this for all of his days.

He's not sure how long it goes on. Enough for his jaw to start aching and burning up against Blaine's hand that still is clasping his jaw. It is everything Kurt has ever wanted and needed and it's endless and too short and hot and loving and it is just everything. Only minutes ago he thought saying the words "I'm gay" changed his life. And maybe they still did. But he can feel right now that this is the real moment. The moment when he starts living for the very first time.

He gets brave, moves his hands to Blaine, ripping off his tie and pulling him impossibly closer to him, because Kurt wants to climb inside Blaine right now, wants to spend the rest of his life kissing these lips and with his hands on this skin. And that's when Blaine pulls away and before Kurt can gasp for breath, is out of the door leaving Kurt with kiss bruised lips and his tie.

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><p><strong>AN: Say goodbye to Blaine's PoV. We won't be seeing it for a long time. Like ten years worth of time. Hehe.**

**Also, be careful what you wish for, Kurtie.**

**Song is Wonderful Life by The Hurts and is a great song.**


	7. Soul Meets Body

**WARNING: CONTAINS TRIGGERING SUBJECTS. PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER IF MENTIONS OF SELF HARM ARE TRIGGERING. PLEASE.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Six – Where Soul Meets Body<strong>

Kurt, after Blaine had left the room, slid slowly down the shelf. His fist loosened and tightened around the tie in his hand in time with his heartbeat, in time with the steady tick of his empty thoughts.

And really, they were empty. Blaine's kiss had not only wiped out the "I'm gay" litany, he'd also just eradicated every other thought Kurt would ever had. He couldn't even find it within himself to feel upset or confused or angry or heartbroken. All he knew was the steady clench of his own hand around the soft material of Blaine's tie.

It was hours later before he tripped in the room of their dorm – dark and filled with the tiny sounds of Blaine breathing – and flung himself on the bed, still clothed.

He tried to sleep, tossing and turning, but it was only when he matched his breaths and the constant squeeze of the tie to Blaine's breathing that he could sleep.

Blaine was gone when Kurt woke up, and he couldn't decide if he was glad or heartbroken that he got to avoid the awkward encounter. He traipsed to the shower in a daze and went through the routine apathetically. (He missed the "morning wank" part of his routine, entirely convinced that after last night he would never be hard again.)

Padding loudly in the too quiet and empty room, he walked over to his bad and sat down, musing detachedly at his own numbness. He still couldn't think or feel. The tie was sitting next to him, already crumpled beyond repair by Kurt's compulsive grasping.

There was a note sitting on Blaine's bed.

_I'm sorry._

_I can't._

And that's when the numb finally broke like a dam giving into the torrent and the heartbreak rushed in.

Kurt managed to pull enough of the shattered apathy into a thin veneer of a mask that he wore through his classes as he internally broke down.

Blaine's words, while vague, represent it all. They create an overwhelming feeling of no. _No,_ Kurt cannot get what he wants. _No,_ Kurt cannot just breeze through life and assume his best friend will be there. _No,_ Kurt cannot follow up what might be the best kiss in the history of forever with a relationship that might be worth all of this fucking pain to begin with.

_No,_ Kurt is not loved back by Blaine.

The thing is, until Kurt sees those words, he doesn't even realise he is in love with Blaine. Before the agony drowns out even his own wordless sobs, he doesn't even consider it an option. Because the reasons he's always said that he can't love Blaine are ironically the reasons he loves him now.

[Blaine is his best friend. Blaine knows too many of Kurt's secrets and heartbreaks and stupid thoughts. Kurt is always too embarrassed around Blaine to even think about that sort of relationships. Also, Blaine kinda has this annoying habit of tracking water all through their dorm that Kurt absolutely hates.]

So, as Kurt finally realises everything, he clings even more desperately to the fragile mask he is wearing as he waits for the time he can break down.

Four o'clock comes around again and students run past him in the hallway, eager for another weekend. The ones who leave for the weekend stream endlessly out of the foyer and the boarding students who stay are all gathering in each other rooms or the common room. It's one of those days where no one wants to be alone, which of course means Kurt retreats back to their room, absent mindedly clutching the tie in his pocket.

He gets bumped into a wall by a student who throws an automated "sorry, dude!" his way then scampers off. It was such a little thing, really, but he wants to cry. It's just proof to him that not only does his social life exist outside of Blaine, without Blaine defining him, he doesn't exist within Dalton. It makes sense really, they clung to each other at such a young age that they didn't even try to make other friends. But it still hurts, because now he doesn't even have Blaine to make him truly Kurt.

The sun is setting and it marks 24 whole hours that Kurt hasn't seen or spoken to Blaine. It's the first time since they've met, and finally Kurt cries, drenching the tie that is laid out in his lap.

In the hours of sobbing that follow, the thought chases him. He dismisses it and then it just floats back. It's a simple thought; one tied to the simple words _I can't_ and the pain in his chest that logically Kurt knows is his lungs crying for oxygen that his sobs aren't providing but he thinks has everything to do with the empty feeling that he got when Blaine left him in the library. He thrusts away the thought again and picks up his phone.

[Kurt will find the messages in his "Drafts" folder later and throw his phone away from him into the nearest wall.

_To Blaine: I love you._

_To Blaine: Come back._

_To Blaine: I have your tie._

_To Blaine: Why? Why did you have to do this to me?_

_To Blaine: I hate you._

_To Blaine: No I don't._

_To Blaine: I love you._]

In the end he only sends one message, one that ended up being a kind of double message and also strangely prophetic.

_To Blaine: It hurts too much. I need you._

In the end, the idea finally gets him. He tires of avoiding it and just gives in. Maybe the stray thought was right, maybe it would make him feel better. And even if it didn't, did it really matter now?

It was handy that Blaine, unlike Kurt, needed to shave and had a couple of razor blades sitting in their bathroom. Kurt grabs one and shuffles into the shower stall, fully clothed. He doesn't know why, but he knows that he doesn't want to leave a mess. He knows how angry it makes him when Blaine doesn't clean up after himself. Even now, he doesn't want to inconvenience Blaine. He starts to move the blade on his arm.

When Blaine finds him, his first thought it "Crap, I look like shit" and his second thought, after seeing the panic in the eyes he loves so much is "Oh no, I wasn't trying to die."

He thinks he may have even said that, but it is lost in a sob as Blaine gathers him into his arms.

Blaine puts him in his bed, and carefully drapes the tattered tie over the thin but deep cut. He then gets into bed with him and they cling together. Just once. And cry.

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><p><strong>AN: I've gotten quite a few "no, whyyyyyyy?" kinda reviews and i am sorry to say that you will have to wait a bit longer to hear Blaine's side of the story. And he does have a valid story and reasons for his actions. I promise a little bit of closure in the next couple of chapters.**

**And, if anyone had noticed that the title of this refers to the Bloc Party song of the same name, you will know that the song refers to same sex attraction within a school setting between two best friends. Of course "You should have asked me for it" if one of my favourite lines, but so is "I kept your tie". It is for that reason the tie will keep popping up in the story.**

**i apologise for this long authors note that many of you would have skipped, but I just want to take the time to thank everyone who has favourites, alerted or [especially] reviewed me. It makes me smile every time I go to my inbox and see another notification. So thank you, truly.**

**Song is Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie (which was incorrectly labelled as Interpol for years in my iTunes)**


	8. Then Who're We Supposed to Be?

**A/N: Posting this now because I am procrastinating on exams. **

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven – Then Who're We Supposed to Be?<strong>

Kurt woke up the next morning and nothing hurt. In the hazy cloud of his brain, he couldn't even remember what he should be hurting about. All he knew was that he was warm, his bed was ridiculously comfortable and the breathing of Blaine next to him was the most soothing sound he'd ever heard.

Wait, there was something about Blaine, wasn't there? Kurt rolled over onto his back and as he did a flash of colour distracted him. It was the tie, stained with spots of his blood, wrapped around his wrist like a bandage.

As soon as he saw the tie he remembered it all. He remembered Blaine leaving, and not seeing him for the entire day until he magically turned up and swept them into the same bed. Mixed signals much?

"Blaine. Blaine. Blaine, get up."

Beside him, Blaine groaned and rolled further into Kurt's side. He contemplated leaving him there, snuggling down beside him and enjoying just a few more moments of peace. But he knew that having what he wanted but not really having it was just going to kill him later when Blaine, inevitably, left again.

"Blaine! Get up!"

He was met by snoring.

Kurt pulled the blanket off him and giggled internally at the sight of Blaine immediately springing into fetal position.

"Blaine, go shower. We need to talk."

If Kurt enjoyed the sight of Blaine's chest glistening with water (which of course, yes, he did immensely enjoy), he didn't let on. Because now wasn't that time. Now was time to be serious. Kurt's arm was throbbing and it felt hot and itchy and all Kurt could think was that it was still nothing compared to how ill at ease he felt in his skin. And it was time to sit Blaine down and ask what the fuck was going on.

Which is more or less exactly what came out of his mouth.

"Uhh. What?" Blaine looked up at Kurt in confusion, still sleepy.

"Blaine," he sighed, running his hands through his hair and tugging slightly, "Please sit down. We need to talk about yesterday. And the night before. Actually, no, how bout we stay in this room until we've talked about every single second of lives because you used to make sense to me and now I have no idea who you are." He drew a breath in a hiss as Blaine sat/fell onto the bed with a heartbroken expression on his face.

It hurt Kurt so much to see him like this, always enough for his to tell him to get up and to let things go on the way they were. But instead, Kurt pressed a firm hand to his cut under the tie and began talking, the pain burning through him.

"Let's start in the library. There was something that I wanted to say to was, was going to say to you, before you decided that making out with me was far better plan than listening to what I had to say." Blaine blushed and bit his lip.

Kurt knelt in front of him, looking him in the eyes. "Blaine. I'm gay. That's what I wanted to tell you in the library. I'd just finally said it to myself and I wanted to tell you. Because you are my best friend, Blaine. You are my everything, really."

Kurt took a deep breathe and looked at Blaine's stoic face. "And you know what? I think you are too. I think we're both gay, Blaine, and that's why you kissed me and that's why your girlfriend's didn't work out and why you have this special smile that is only for me. You're gay, Blaine."

Blaine still didn't say anything, he just stared at Kurt as he spoke.

"But that's okay," Kurt said, grabbing Blaine's face between his soft hands, "Because then we can be together."

He watched carefully for Blaine's reaction. Blaine's squeezed his eyes tightly shut, licked his lips, and whispered one word.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Kurt wrenched his hands away from Blaine, and Blaine fell forward slightly, eyes still closed. "No, what, Blaine? You know, this is exactly the same that fucking note you left. I can't. Can't what, Blaine? Why is it always no or can't with you? Why can't you ever just say yes?"

Kurt was yelling now, storming around the quiet room, staring at Blaine's face; a lip firmly grasped between his teeth and his eyes still clenched shut.

Something in Blaine's face just sucked all the anger out of him.

"Can't be gay? Is that it? Is that what you can't? Blaine, I just want you talk to me. It's me, I know you better than you know yourself. There is nothing you can say that will surprise me. You know why it was so important to me to tell you I was gay? To say it at all? Because I thought that maybe you were too. And I know you, I know exactly how hard that would be for you. I wanted to be there, to be the person who opens up first. So you'd know that I am accepting of you, and that it's all okay. So that we could go through it together. I wanted you to know that."

Blaine stayed the same, closed off and silent.

"Or was that not it? Maybe you can be gay, and that's not what you 'can't' do. Maybe it's me. You can't love me. Is that it, Blaine? Because you can't convince me that I'm blind and that I haven't seen the way you look at me and everything. Blaine, I know you! You can't hide from me and you should never have to. What can't you just tell me the truth?"

Kurt was crying now, talking himself in circles, trying to say the right thing to make Blaine react. To make him yell or scream or cry or anything. The silence was terrifying. They were Kurt and Blaine, they knew each other inside and out. They'd answer questions about each other absent mindedly, uncaring that sometimes it was a little strange that they were so close. Kurt thought he knew what Blaine was thinking. He thought he had worked it out. But he sat there, silent and unresponsive, as Kurt ran through his theories. And he wasn't Blaine like this, wasn't the boy with the grin and the charm. God, he wasn't even the Blaine who looked at Kurt guiltily and kissed girls.

He wasn't someone Kurt recognised.

And that was far worse than anything else.

After four and a bit years of being so close they breathed together, Kurt had lost Blaine.

He dropped back again in front of Blaine, his everything. He could faintly feel his knees aching and the throb of his arm.

"Blaine?" His voice was soft and firm. "Blaine, please look at me." Nothing. "Blaine, I can't do this anymore. This is tearing me apart. You need to look at me. You need to talk to me. Please." Kurt's voice broke on 'please'. "Blaine, if you don't, I can't be here anymore. We won't be friends, you know that. Just like you know I wouldn't be able to be here if we weren't. god, it'd kill me. Blaine, please, just look at me, and it will all be okay."

Blaine scrunched his eyes even closer together.

Kurt let out his breath in a quiet sigh, resigned. "Okay, okay. I get it. you can't look at me any more. I don't really know why, but it has to have something to do with gay thing. I don't even care. I just want you to come back to me, Blaine. We can fix this. Just tell me that you want me to stay. Because – Blaine, I promise you this with everything I am – if I walk out that door, if you let me walk out that door, I will never come back. I won't do that to you, and I won't do that to myself. If you don't want me, then I will go. I love you just that much. So this is it. Tell me not to go."

He waited in silence for minutes. Then, when nothing came, he wiped his tears, kissed Blaine quickly on the forehead, and walked out the door.

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><p><strong>Originally this was going to be in two chapters, one with the fight, and one with the ultimatum. But I couldn't bear to hurt the boys more than I already was, and besides, Kurt kinda took over.<strong>

**This is the last chapter before the "Ten Years Later" part. I wouldn't expect the next part until November, guys. I am sorry, but exams.**

**I'm really interested on what you all think of the boys' reactions in this chapter. Why do you think Blaine said nothing? Why was Kurt so quick to leave? Should he have stayed?**

**Song is "The Key" by Ou Est Le Swimming Pool**


	9. Just Let My Heart, Let It Go

**A/N: This was originally two chapters, but I wanted to reward everyone for reading by throwing everyone back into the journey of ours boys. :)**

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight – Just Let My Heart, Let It Go<strong>

**Ten Years Later. New York.**

Kurt Hummel is twenty six years old (as of a few days ago) and finally okay with his life again when he sees him.

It's been ten years, but Blaine Anderson still looks the same, bright and happy and unbelievably gorgeous, standing on a crowded street corner, waiting to cross the road.

Kurt stands and watches him, frozen on the spot and within his own mind. The only thing he can think is that he doesn't want Blaine to see him. He has many reasons for this, of course, but the most important is the way his chest is aching and he's not even sure he's breathing.

His heart is breaking and exploding and filling up in his chest all at the same time. Blaine crosses the road and strides off into the bustle of New York and Kurt can no longer see him.

He still stands there though, paralysed with so many feelings and not wanting to move. He has this vague idea that if he moves, it wouldn't be true. He never would have seen Blaine. He knows that he should think that is a good thing, but he stands still anyway, standing on the sidewalk, staring into the past until he is positive he's missed work.

He slams the door behind him, throws his keys on the table, and screams.

On the way back to his apartment (after a quick call to work, citing a stomach bug as the reason for his absence) Kurt finally sorts his feelings into manageable piles. The rush of happiness he felt when he saw Blaine gets put into a box labeled "Just Do Not Go There" along with the way his heart had thrummed at the idea that maybe if he'd turned his head, Kurt would be able to see his eyes again, finally. He places the remembered heartbreak in the box labeled "How Blaine Broke Our Heart" (which was a very full box indeed) and the irrational anger into "How Do We Hate Blaine? Let Us Count The Ways" box. He then takes a deep breath, steels himself in the back of the cab, tips over those two boxes and lets himself go crazy.

By the time he reaches his apartment he's plotted his own demise and Blaine's many times over, has made plans to leave the country and become a hermit in India, and has thoroughly found himself back in the exact same headspace Blaine had left him in ten years ago.

Which is why he screams.

He screams, then he yells, "Fuck you!" and then he collapses on his bed sobbing madly.

It's all back, and Kurt could not be more pissed off and disappointed to have been torn apart so completely by just seeing Blaine. Torn apart again.

He reaches into his bedside table drawer, pushing the condoms and lube aside, rummaging to find something very specific. He feels it, the soft fabric, washed clean of his blood by accident but still smelling very faintly of Blaine, and pulls it out. He pulls it up to his face and falls asleep.

When he wakes up it's dark, and he feels like complete shit. He sends a group message.

_To [New Directions]: Just saw Blaine on a street here. He didn't see me. Feel like I did back then. SOS._

There is no reason for his friends from McKinley to know Blaine's name. They'd never met him, never seen photos of him and Kurt never even allowed them to watch the Warblers perform. But they knew all about Blaine.

They knew how Kurt and he had met. They knew his favourite colour. They knew he'd always wanted to be a musician. And they knew that he had broken Kurt heart.

They had seen it first hand. Kurt was broken when they met him. Just a pale skinned waif of a boy who walked down the halls with his head down and flinched when anyone spoke to him. It wasn't that Kurt had reason to be fearful of anybody at McKinley, it was just that he didn't want the people around him to see who he was. It took him months to be okay snd secure and comfortable enough in the New Directions to even admit he was gay. The admission was met with a lot of shrugging, "so what?"s and even one "Why didn't you tell us before?"

That was the question that broke him and cemented his friendship with all of them, he thinks when he looks back. Nothing about how he could bear being gay, or demands that he leave the Glee club. Instead there was just that question, a question that said "yes, we knew, and we're all upset you didn't trust us earlier". Kurt had broken down and sobbed on the floor, still slick with the sweat from the earlier rehearsal. It was then that he told them about Blaine. Through hiccups and fits of hysteria, he told them about his ex-boyfriend who inexplicably kissed him and then let his leave once he found out Kurt was gay and how he thought if the person who meant most to him in the entire world could abandon him because of his sexuality, what was stopping a bunch of relative strangers from doing it?

They had soothed him with murmurs then, and now, they soothed him with messages.

_From Brit Brit: We had a rainbow over here. Did rainbows appear because you were in the same city again?_

_From Cedes: Boy, please tell me you aren't crying into your pillow right now or so help me i will shove it down your throat. Forget him!_

_From Puck: Do I need to bash him up?_

_From Finn: But you didn't talk to him, right? What is the problem then?_

_From Rachel: I completely understand. That's how I used to feel when I saw your brother with Quinn. Try to channel all that emotion into a song; it's about time the world hears your countertenor. Maybe a duet is in order..._

_From Santana: Go get drunk. Call me when you are appropriately wasted. Man up._

He read through them, giggling, snorting and rolling his eyes at the appropriate times. Santana's messages stuck with him though. Kurt Hummel rarely drank - he found it usually resulted in him waking up in bed with a stranger with his pants flung on a nearby tree - but there was something ridiculously appealing about losing his mind (and his pants) tonight and burning the image of Blaine Anderson forever from his retinas.

He sent a quick "will do" message to Santana, grabbed his coat and headed out to a bar he had heard about from a couple of his friends.

He should have gone to another bar.

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><p><strong>AN Pt 2: I want to thank everyone for their reviews on every chapter, but especially on the last one. I enjoyed (probably more than I should have) reading you rage or tell me that I had made you hate your favourite character, or that I had made you cry. Those sorts of emotional responses are the ones that mean the most to me, so thank you. But I can promise that it will all be explained. The reason for Kurt leaving is actually referenced in this chapter, and Blaine's reason for letting him go is definitely in the last couple of chapters too.**

**Thank you all again. :)**

**Song is "Hello Love Goodbye" by To Be Juliet's Secret**


	10. Tonight I'm On My Knees, Yeah

**A/N: Just a short one folks. The next one should be huge and important. **

**But guess what, Blaine's back!**

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><p><strong>Chapter Nine – Tonight I'm On My Knees, Yeah<strong>

Blaine loved New York. Like really loved New York. He loved the way the city thrummed under his feet, the way it breathed. He loved how loud it was and how alive. He loved the people he met that were new and interesting. He loved that there was nothing Ohio about New York. He loved that no one really knew him and yet they could see he was just like so many others around him. He loved it all.

But at the same time, he hated New York. He hated that it was so fucking big. He had been in the city for seven years, and he looked everywhere he went, but he never saw the person he was looking for.

If anyone asked, Blaine had moved to New York after graduating because of college music programs. But Blaine had to pretend he didn't see all his friends roll their eyes at his dumb excuse. Everyone knew the real reason Blaine was going to New York.

It was no secret to anyone at Dalton that Kurt was going to go to New York when they had graduated. ( What was a secret was why he had let, but Blaine sulking around like a forlorn and profoundly guilty puppy had kinda solved that one.) So when Blaine had announced that he was enrolled in NYU, everyone just pretended they didn't hear that sentence as "I'm going to follow Kurt and find him and love him until we die".

Because in Blaine's mind, that's what he was doing in New York. He was going to find Kurt, make him understand what had really happened that night, marry him and live happily ever after. Blaine even had the speech all mapped out (of course, over the years his introspection had grown and so had the speech, especially the explaining part) and now, all he needed was to find Kurt and everything would be okay.

But New York had failed him for seven years. He never stopped looking, of course, or hoping; but in those seven years, Blaine had stopped letting his life revolve around Kurt. He wasn't over him, by any means, but Blaine had somewhat resigned himself to the fact that his life was now meaningless sex and heart-wrenching songs. It was purgatory, always waiting for something to happen, but he didn't mind.

Well, he didn't mind until one night, when he was setting up for his weekly gig at his favourite bar, Kurt Hummel pushed the door open and sauntered back into his life.

He watches him walk to the bar, plonk himself down, and order what looks like a vodka tonic. Blaine just watches, unable to do anything else. The speech he's been planning for ten years has fallen straight out of his head and all he can do is watch the bob of Kurt's throat as he drinks.

It's only when the crowd starts yelling that Blaine realises he stepped back too far snd the sharp claw of static is deafening them all. The sound of feedback that is now make Kurt look up and right at him.

For the first time in ten years, since the night he broke both their hearts, Kurt and Blaine look each other straight in the eye and it breaks the paralysis over both of them.

Kurt finishes his drink and orders another one in quick succession, avoiding looking at Blaine studiously.

_Well,_ Blaine thinks, _i'll just have to make him look._

He bends over the mic. "Hello, i'm Blaine Anderson and this is 'This Boy's in Love'."

It's one of his usual songs, and the audience at the bar usually love it, but tonight he's playing it for a completely different reason. A reason that just happens to be at the bar on his third drink.

_[This time fight fire with fire,_

_Coz baby tonight the world belongs to you and i._

_This boy's in love,_

_Love._

_This boy's in love,_

_Under city,_

_Under city lights._

_This town, these streets,_

_Your friends,_

_You'll never see this place again._

_You'll think about it,_

_Now and then,_

_You'll never see our face again.]_

He ends to a decent amount of applause and yet another ordered drink from Kurt. Blaine was definitely getting to him. He searches his mind for the next song and it comes to him, glaringly obvious.

[_When I see your smile_

_The tears roll down my face,_

_I can't replace._

_And now that i'm strong _

_I have figured out,_

_How this world turns cold,_

_And it breaks through my soul,_

_And i know i'll find,_

_Deep inside me,_

_I can be the one._

_I will never let you fall,_

_I'll stand up with you forever._

_I'll be there for you through it all, even if saving you sends me to heaven.]_

Over at the bar, Kurt seems to be fighting with the bartender over whether or not he needs another drink. Blaine only had one song left before the other regular came and took over. It was time for the coup de grace.

_[__I knew, I knew, I'd lose you_

_You'll always be special to me_

_And I remember all the_

_Things we once shared_

_Watching tv movies on_

_The living room armchair_

_But they say it will work out fine_

_Was it all a waste of time_

_Cause I knew, I knew, I'd lose you_

_You'll always be special to me_

_Will I forget in time_

_You said I was on your mind_

_There's no need to argue_

_No need to argue anymore_

_There's no need to argue anymore]_

It was the closest his setlist came to an apology, and he suddenly felt himself wishing he could just hijack the mic and give Kurt the speech, but the girl who was up next was already on stage, ushering him off.

Blaine tripped off the stage and headed to the bar.

"Kurt." The word ripped itself from his throat, and it sounded coarse and a little like a moan. He looked up, and all that was written across his face was despair. Blaine's heart broke with every tear that slide down Kurt's perfect face.

"Kurt, Kurt. Kurt." Over and over, Blaine said his name. It was his apologies and his declarations of love and his own self loathing and it was all Kurt's name.

Suddenly Kurt was pulling him into a fierce biting kiss and whispering "take me home."

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><p><strong>I do apologise for the ratio of lyrics to story in this chapter, but the lyrics are kinda important.<strong>

**Songs are "This Boy's in Love" by The Presets, "Your Guardian Angel" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and "No Need to Argue" by The Cranberries. And the chapter title is from "Bittersweet Symphony" by Verve.**

**I know this chapter might be a bit strange because it's all "I love Kurt, I love Kurt" suddenly, but remember we haven't heard Blaine's PoV for a very long time. But I am gonna sit on the "what happened that night" speech for a little while longer, coz I'm evil that way.**

**B**


	11. You Said That You Could Let It Go

**A/N: Surprise! This wasn't supposed to be up for a couple days, but it wouldn't let me sleep without writing it.**

**WARNING: TRIGGERING CONTENT. MENTION OF PAST SELF HARM. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS IS A TRIGGER.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Ten – You Said That You Could Let It Go<strong>

Kurt was drunk when he left the bar – of course he was drunk, how could be stay sober after seeing Blaine for the second time in one days after seven years and then have to listen to him sing _those_ songs? – but not nearly as drunk as Blaine thought he was. When Kurt had said "Take me home," he knew Blaine had just heard "Take me home so we can fuck." It was a little insulting that Blaine thought Kurt was that easy, but really, in ordinary circumstances, Kurt usually was. It was a hold over from the whole thing with Blaine, he supposed. In either case, Kurt wasn't going to sleep with Blaine. He was far too angry, (and not quite drunk enough) for that. But he knew it would get Blaine to leave the bar with him, and Kurt was actually sort of relieved he didn't have to go through his tirade in front of the entire bar.

And there was a tirade. There was going to be crying and swearing and Kurt was going to launch all of the feelings he had been bottling for ten years at Blaine all at once and he just wanted Blaine to feel as fucking heartbroken as Kurt did that night.

Hell hath no fury like a Kurt Hummel scorned.

He giggled to himself a little bit and Blaine turned at smiled at him while trying to unlock his door. Well, Kurt supposed, the random gigging would help Blaine believe that Kurt was still drunk.

They stumbled in the door way, and Blaine went at sat on his bed.

"Kurt," he said, patting the bed next to him.

Kurt stood by the door and coolly said, "So, Blaine, still fucking women?"

There was a pure vindictive pleasure that Kurt got at the look of surprise on Blaine's face. He was completely lost.

"Uhhhh, no. Only men. You know that though." Blaine still looked a lot blindsided by Kurt's question and the angry tone he asked it in, but the manners that were bred into him seemed to overweigh that.

It kind of hurt Kurt to have the reminder of the fight that had, for all intents and purposes, broken them up. And the point wasn't to hurt himself, it was to inflict the same pain Kurt had felt for years bit by bit, using words as knives.

"No, I wouldn't know that, would I? Last I knew, you were dating girls. There was that matter of snogging me up against a bookshelf, but I guess I wouldn't know about that either, Blaine."

Wince. There was a very satisfying wince from Blaine at that. A wince and a shuffle, like he was deeply uncomfortable in his skin.

_Good. He deserves to know how it feels to not want to be yourself anymore._

They looked at each other in silence and Blaine slowly stood up. Kurt arched a brow at him as Blaine stepped forward and softly spoke.

"You told me ten years ago that you know me better than anyone else, Kurt, and you would accept anything I told you. That is what I mean. You know I don't still sleep with women, Kurt. You knew I was gay before I did. You knew that I loved you…"

Blaine's hand had moved to caress Kurt's cheek as he was talking, but the second Blaine said the L word, Kurt whirled away, all anger and pale limbs.

"No! You do not get to do this to me again, Blaine Anderson. You don't just get to walk back into my life with your smile and that hair and sing me songs and just make it all better! You do not get to do that after what you did to me. Why are you here?"

He was pacing and Blaine had sat back on the bed again, sighing with resignation. Like he knew that this what they were reduced to now, Blaine on the bed silent while Kurt raged at him. "I live here. I've lived here for seven years now. I work at a record store and I play at that bar every single week. You walked into my life, Kurt, not the other way around. You are the one who found me this time."

"Oh my god, fuck that! I saw you this morning Blaine! Standing on a street corner. Just when I thought my life was getting back into order again. And there you were, and you broke my heart all over again, Blaine. Like you always have. You know what? I'm going to show you."

And he started unbuttoning his shirt. And taking off his pants. And socks. And shoes. And scarf.

Blaine sat there, slightly horrified at the sudden semi-nudity.

"Here," Kurt said, thrusting out his arm at Blaine, "You remember this?"

He pointed to the scar he had made that night, thick and knotted. Ugly. The one that had been the symbol of all the things that had never begun, and the symbol of the pain that never stopped.

Blaine sucked in a hiss.

"That's ten years old. I know you remember."

He pointed to a scar on his left hipbone now.

"This one is nine years old. It's from the first year at McKinley."

Right thigh.

"Eight years."

Left wrist, under the watch.

"Seven years. I moved to New York."

"Six."

"Five."

"Four years old."

"Three."

"Two years."

He pointed to them all in quick succession, slowing as he showed the final one, a thin red line still healing on his stomach.

"A couple of weeks old."

He pulled his shirt and jeans back on, avoiding Blaine's gaze. "Ten. One for each year that you've been breaking my heart, Blaine. Nine all made on my birthday, the day it all started. You wanna know why I do them, Blaine? Do you? As always, I'm gonna take your silence as a yes, because it's been too long since you actually spoke to me like a rational human being. I do them because they make me ugly. I see them, and all I can feel is how ugly I am. And that feels right, because I've felt ugly and unloved for ten fucking years, Blaine. I do them because you didn't want me, and now no one else will, and I don't want them to want me if you never could."

He finally looked at Blaine now, his shirt left unbuttoned.

Blaine was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the healing cut and weeping.

Not crying. Weeping.

Tears were falling down Blaine's cheeks like raindrops Kurt used to race on windowpanes. Except the rain had never looked as perfect and as terrible as Blaine's tears did. Perfect because even now, everything Blaine did was perfect to Kurt, and terrible because he felt no sense of revenge or justification seeing Blaine cry. He just felt like shit.

And just a tiny part of him, the tiniest and quietest part of him, believed that maybe Blaine did love him after all.

And that part, the crazy masochistic part that Kurt thought he'd let die, didn't want Blaine to keep looking so broken.

"I lied," Kurt whispered, falling to his knees in front of Blaine, "I lied. I don't do these because I want to feel ugly. I mean, I still do, but I don't do them for that. I do them to remember. Because I only realised I loved you right before our entire world went to shit, and I can't even remember that. I just remember pain when I think of you. And just when my heart stopped aching and I finally felt like I could breathe, I got scared. Because loving you hurt me, and if it didn't hurt then maybe I wasn't loving you anymore. I don't know how to do that yet, not love you, and I definitely didn't then, so I'd make them. And then I had the scar, the reminder. And I had the pain. That pain that was because I loved you, and that it hurt. When I grew up, I stopped loving you, I think. Or well, at least I started hating you. But I couldn't stop the pain. And now, I don't know if I want to. It's all I have left."

And then suddenly, Kurt was crying and this was not what he was planning back at the bar, but the sobs kept forcing themselves out of his throat, barking and raw. He felt like his entire body was trying to turn itself inside out from the aching, like air had suddenly become poisonous.

This was the point of the cutting. It was supposed to control this. He wasn't supposed to feel like he was dying.

Not now.

Not now that Blaine was here and Kurt was the one in pain, again.

He sobbed until he felt he couldn't anymore, and he was just on the floor, hiccupping, his eyes screwed tight against the world that insisted on breaking him at every turn.

A kiss was pressed to the strip of his stomach that was still bare from his earlier exhibition.

"Stand up."

Kurt let himself be pulled up by Blaine, who knelt in front of him and placed a tender kiss on the cut on his stomach.

He worked his way backwards through the scars.

"Each."

Kiss.

"Scar."

Kiss.

"Is."

Kiss.

"Beautiful."

Kiss.

"They."

Kiss.

"Are."

Kiss.

"Part."

Kiss.

"Of."

Kiss.

"You."

He paused for a moment at the first scar, and looked up at Kurt. "And I love you."

He finally kissed it and somehow managed to catch Kurt as he fell forward into him, sobbing again.

Kurt felt himself being pulled towards the bed and let himself fall into Blaine again. Just like he had planned to never do again.

But just like that little part of him always knew he would.

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><p><strong>We're getting close to the end now, kids. And soon it will all make sense.<strong>

**I hope I did justice to this. I've had the Kurt-showing-Blaine-the-scars-and-Blaine-kissing-each-one scene in my head since before I knew what this story was, so I really hope it hits you all the way it should.**

**Title song is "Somebody That You Used To Know" by Goyte, which my Kurt and Blaine are constantly doing a duet of. Check it out at my Tumblr :)**

**B**


	12. I Love You More When I'm Missing You

**A/N: Technically a filler as far as plot as concerned, but so so so important in the grand scheme of things. One or two chapters left now, loves.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven – I Love You More When I'm Missing You<strong>

When Blaine woke the next morning, he didn't get that moment of bliss before you remember everything that has passed the night before and reality slams into like a particularly violent bully. From the second he opened his eyes, he remembered, and he couldn't help but cry as the tortured way Kurt displayed himself last night flashed behind his eyes.

Kurt had been so angry last night, angry but broken, clinging to those moments of rage like Blaine was sure he clung to his sanitized and somehow impersonal New York life, because anger and aloofness were as far away Kurt could get from small town Ohio and the way it pervades every aspect of because you have to let more people in and when you let them in they break your heart and leave you bleeding.

Yes, Blaine thinks as he looks down at the tear-stained cheeks of the boy he loves, he knows Kurt, knows him like he knows every second of his favourite songs, and the way the sky lightens bit by bit before sunrise. Blaine knows Kurt, because he loves Kurt and loving someone is to them like no one else.

But in the same way, he doesn't recognise this Kurt. The one he had made in his head so he wouldn't be alone and so dreadfully guilty for the last ten years wasn't like the real version, ad he wasn't sure if that was good or bad yet.

Carefully and quietly, Blaine rolled out of bed without waking Kurt. He needed his sleep, an after everything they had been through, Blaine felt he owed him more sleep and a warm coffee when he woke up, at the very least.

It wasn't a long walk to the nearest Starbucks from his apartment, and if Kurt had been awake when he left, Blaine probably would have gone to that one.

But today, he needed more time to think, to just walk in the brisk air, on the streets that were full but not to the point of running into people. The sun wasn't even fully up yet, and Blaine felt somehow suspended in time. He needed it.

Because there was something that weighed heavily on his mind, something that scared him and made him wish that maybe he had never seen Kurt at the bar, because then he could have kept living his life, not blissfully ignorant but at least pleasantly unaware.

Unaware that having Kurt back was just as painful as it had been when they were sixteen. For ten years he had been building up the moment when they would see each other again, and as time went on with no sight of Kurt's gorgeous eyes, Blaine's expectations simply grew.

Time hadn't dulled the pain of letting Kurt walk out of his life that night, but it had built on his feelings for him, the ones that were only freshly realised when he had made the decision to let the door close behind Kurt. It was true that absence made the heart grow fonder, Blaine thought. Well, 'fonder' wasn't quite the right word. Absence makes the heart grow more and more swollen with love until you are so obsessed with a memory that the real thing feels false.

He stops dead, in the middle of aimlessly wandering a street he never goes on. Because that was it, really. He couldn't get a grip on this Kurt because he wasn't the one who lived in his head. He wasn't the one Blaine had been pining over and destroying himself piece by piece to find. He wasn't the Kurt that he'd been in love with for ten really really really bloody long years.

Obviously he was the real Kurt, Blaine could definitely see that. There was far too much symmetry in last night and the night Kurt raged at Blaine, only to end up on his knees, begging to let him stay. Blaine could see that there was a direct and somewhat disappointing connection from point A to point B and that in the ten years they had been apart, Kurt didn't seem to have grown.

The Kurt in his head never had to plead with Blaine. In all of his imagined scenarios, no matter how he planned them to end, Blaine had always been the one apologising and his reasons would come out in a torrent, mingling with his sorrys and his declarations of love in bright and new colours. Sometimes he imagined that Kurt would silence him with a kiss. Other times he calmly told Blaine to leave, as was only fit.

Maybe it was his own way of karma, of cancelling out that one night, but Blaine had always imagined it to be Kurt sitting quietly on the bed and Blaine tearing out his insides and leaving them for Kurt.

To have had revert back to the reality last night hit him hard, now that he had time to think of something beyond his heart breaking at every new mark Kurt had unveiled.

He didn't want to see proof that he had Kurt almost as much as, if not more than, he'd hurt himself.

Maybe that made Blaine a coward (and secretly he thought it might, thought that's the true reason why the Kurt of his imagining was so apathetic and hard) but right now, it terrified him.

He was tired of hurting Kurt. They'd been back in each other's lives for one day and had already broken each other to shards. It was too much. Blaine was fine with breaking his own heart, he was pretty used to it by this stage, but until right now, having a panic attack on a crowded New York street, he hadn't realised the only reason he could breathe and survive was that he'd convinced himself there was a whole (previously wounded but healed) heart residing in Kurt's chest. That was the only heart he needed.

But he had broken it back then, and in one night back, he had burst open the old scars and made Kurt's wounds bleed fresh.

He couldn't.

He'd meant it then, and he meant it now. Blaine physically could not do this to Kurt, not again, not when he knew that Kurt wouldn't put himself together in new and fantastic shapes and ultimately be all the better for leaving Blaine.

Blaine wanted to run, wanted to abandon his apartment with the love of his life sleeping in his bed, and just leave. Leave so he wasn't given another opportunity to fuck everything up, to destroy the person he loved more than he loved all of existence.

He could do it, easily. He had never made ties here in New York for that reason. Blaine didn't need an exciting life, he just needed one that would be best for Kurt.

While he thought this, he realised he'd been walking, his feet automatically guiding him to the Starbucks, reminding him that, epiphanies aside, his body still needed caffeine, and Kurt's would too.

He ordered without thinking, remembering Kurt's order easier than his own and left the store, the cups points of warmth in his hands.

He would have to go back, obviously. Whether or not he ran after that was irrelevant. He had to go back and wake Kurt. Blaine was going to leave him again, but not without an explanation. Maybe if he took the time this time to tell Kurt, to make him understand, then he'd be okay. Or at least better.

He had to minimise the damage he'd cause before wiping himself out of Kurt's life forever.

Kurt was still asleep when Blaine nudged open the door with his foot and placed the coffees down on the table near the door.

He crept over to him and just watched him. There he was, just Kurt. Not crying, or yelling. Just peaceful and asleep and so beautiful. Blaine could imagine that this was his Kurt, the unbroken and strong one. The one who hadn't let one stupid fight ten years ago make him into a different person. Who had learnt and grown up and lived his life like he always should have.

This was the Kurt Blaine adored and wanted.

But, when he looked closer, there were tear tracks on his cheek, and something fisted angrily in his hands.

It was his Dalton tie; Blaine realised with a jolt, worn and old and creased beyond belief. The one Kurt had slipped off him the night they kissed, right before Blaine had bolted. It was the one he had wrapped around Kurt's arm the night he had found him bleeding. It was everything. Their school years. The best and the worst.

Blaine had been filling the gaps with the perfect Kurt.

Here was Kurt. The same Kurt he left ten years ago at Dalton. The same Kurt who was the closest thing he had to a brother, then his best friend, then the man who made him realise he was gay, and the love of his life.

Blaine didn't really wanted Perfect Kurt, with his whole heart and unblemished body.

He wanted this one, the one who held to a tie like he couldn't breathe without it, the one who was covered in scars.

The one who yelled and screamed and cried and loved like no one Blaine had seen before.

The Kurt that Blaine loved.

The Kurt that Blaine would always love, whether he was in bed with him, or over the other side of the planet.

The Kurt that Blaine knew would die if he left again. And this time, Blaine couldn't be sure he would survive it either.

He got it now. He understood why the universe had thrown them back together for one last go around. Because they had the power to make one more chance into a forever, and it started with Blaine explaining what had happened that night in his head.

He softly woke Kurt up.

"We need to talk."

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><p><strong>AN: Yes, a cliffhanger to tease you all.**

**I really hope that no one raged too hard at Blaine in this chapter. He got there in the end, but it was so important to me that you all understand where Blaine's head is at, and where it had been for the last ten years.**

**As I said before, one or two chapters left (depending on length) with a possible epilogue if you guys want one. Fluffy, smutty, future. I don't mind. Just please no more angst. Even I can't deal with that, and I'm writing this thing.**

**Oh there was a very subtle answer to the "Why did Blaine let Kurt go?" question in this chapter. But don't worry if you didn't see it, next chapter I'll explain it in full.**

**And yes, the tie is back. I think at this stage I'm going to be known as "that girl who writes about the tie". Or suddenly I'm going to start declaring them as my OT3 and just go crazy.**

**Song is "Even Though I'm Woman" by Seeker Lover Keeper, which technically sounds inappropriate but is such a my Blaine song.**

**B**


	13. I'll Tell You The Truth If You Tell Me

**A/N: Finally, what happened to make Blaine say "no" to Kurt.**

**(also I make references to the boy's preferences in bed i.e topping vs bottoming. Let's not have wank about it, please)**

**One more chapter.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Twelve – I'll Tell You the Truth If You Tell Me the Truth<strong>

While Kurt showered and woke himself up, Blaine sipped on his coffee on the edge of the bed and thought about exactly what was going to happen next. He knew it was time for every single thought he had in the ten years since that night and now to come out but how do you even approach that?

He'd been planning his speeches for so long that he'd forgotten how hard it was to say all the things you wanted to say in situations like this.

He swirled his coffee in his cup and listened the whine of shower cutting off.

In a few minutes, Kurt would come out of the shower, dripping and warm and smelling good and Blaine knew it was going to take him straight back to when they shared the dorm at Dalton. Right back to the start, with the dreams and discovering a part of him that he now counted the greatest. And maybe that was a good thing. Maybe if he just closed his eyes and let himself be back there, a stupid sixteen year old who had no idea what he was doing, he could made Kurt understand what had happened.

The door to his bathroom opened and Kurt came out, smiling lightly at Blaine as he took his coffee from the table and sat on the bed next to him.

He took a sip and smiled widely at Blaine. "You still know my coffee order!"

Blaine laughed. "I don't know why that surprises you. Sometimes I completely blank on mine and order yours instead and I don't notice until I drink it. And then I notice it tastes like you."

Kurt was blushing faintly, and Blaine thought it was the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen. Kurt cleared his throat and then looked sideways at Blaine.

"So," Kurt started sheepishly, "What of the gazillion things we haven't said to each did you want to talk about? Preferably something that doesn't end with me furiously taking off my clothes again."

Blaine laughed. It was good that they could find some kind of humour in all the ways they had managed to screw up, even just in the space of two days. Because that's what their entire lives together had been, if you stuck them all together, a series of mistakes and missed chances and fights all tied together by a love they couldn't escape.

"Well that's no fun, now is it? At the very least, give me a tiny chance that there will be nudity. Pleeeeeeease," Blaine begged, grinning at Kurt and giving him the patented puppy dog eyes.

Kurt chuckled at shoved at him a little and just like that, all the tension melted out of them both. Maybe they hadn't really gotten to the flirty stage of their relationship ten years ago, but it felt like maybe they always should have.

Blaine stretched back on his bed, watching Kurt as he smiled at his coffee. "Do you remember your sixteenth birthday?" Blaine sounded casual, like he was musing, but it seemed fitting to him that this conversation would start with the morning that started it all.

Kurt spluttering as he tried to swallow his coffee answered that yes, he definitely did remember the morning he was talking about. He turned bright read and Blaine went on.

"I heard you. I don't know if you knew or not, but I heard you that morning. Moaning and whimpering. At first I woke up coz I thought you were crying, so I watched to see if you were crying or anything. But you weren't." Blaine closed his eyes and tried to see back into the past. "You were moving, writhing, and you kept making these amazing noises. And even when I realised what you were doing, what I was watching you do, I couldn't look away. And I didn't want to. You were so beautiful, and the moans and the way you moved your hips… god Kurt, for years afterwards I would still dream about it, about watching you again. I've seen a lot in the last ten years, I'm not going to lie, but you were, are, still the most sexy thing I've ever seen."

He kept his eyes closed and tried to feel out where Kurt was. He heard a tiny sigh and felt Kurt lie down next to him.

"It seems so obvious to me, really, but I guess I never told you. I'd rather you know everything, even the things you'd already guessed, than leave something out, so bear with me. The dreams started after that morning. Every single day I saw you and we spent every moment together, because we'd always shared our lives, but then at night… I would dream of you. Of fucking you. Of sucking you off. I'd dream me throwing you at a wall and making you scream. Of covering you in bruises and bites. Every single night, I thought about it."

"I'm a top, you know," Kurt remarked wryly from next to him.

Blaine opened his eyes and stared at him. "You bottomed for sixteen year old me, in my head. Twenty six year old me, he doesn't care what he gets, as long as it's you." He turned his head back to the ceiling and closer his eyes before he could see Kurt's reaction. It seemed like he'd said too much too soon.

"I guess, because it was just sex, I thought that the simple solution was just to date and get laid and then I'd be better. Can I just be clear, now that I'm old, dating girls seems like the stupidest freaking thing I've ever done. Not the worst, but the dumbest. And, well, you remember how the girls went. I had sex with Ari, and even that didn't help. Okay, so yes it was probably also because she was girl, but it was mostly because of you. I couldn't concentrate in class. I couldn't sleep. You were everywhere. I don't know how I even managed to keep even a façade of our friendship up, when I wasn't listening to any of the words you said. I was remembering the sounds you made when you came. So when I finally broke up with whatshername, I decided I needed to kiss you, to see what I felt."

He opened his eyes, only to find Kurt looking back at him with trepidation and fear. They were getting to the part that would hurt. He moved to sit back up and without hesitation, Kurt moved with him so they were face to face again. Blaine locked eyes with Kurt and steadied himself.

"I had it all sorted in my head. I'd kiss you and either I'd feel nothing, or I'd feel like I felt in the dreams. I didn't plan past the kiss, and I didn't really even plan the kiss itself. All I knew is that you were there and you were going to say something and I didn't want it to be something that would stop me so I just… kissed you." He bit his lip and watched Kurt as he ran a fingertip under his watch (where Blaine knew there was a scar) nervously. He grabbed his hand and pulled it to his cheek. "It was the best kiss I ever had, and it was the start of everything. Because sixteen year old me had gone in there planning for only two options. I didn't even consider a third. It never even crossed my mind that kissing you would make me realise how in love with you I was."

He stared at Kurt, willing him to understand the rest, to not make him say it and tear the wounds open again. But Kurt just softly withdrew his hand and nodded for him to go on.

"I don't know how it was for you, realising you loved me. I don't even know if I should assume that you did. But for this conversation, let's assume we were both in love and just didn't say it. I had to leave, because the world changes when you realise you are in love with your best friend, doesn't it? I was okay with lusting after you, because maybe that was just my body's way of telling me to look at boys. And you were my best friend and my other half and obviously I was okay with that. But loving you, that was so much different. I was so scared. I kept myself awake with questions like 'what if he doesn't feel the same?', 'will we still be friends?' and 'what if we do get together and I break his heart?' So I woke up early, left you a note and went for a walk. I just needed the time and now I realise how fucking dumb that note must have sounded because right when I thought I'd come to terms with everything, I got a text from you saying it hurt too much. Which meant of course I had to come for you. I expected to see you crying or maybe angry and at first I couldn't find you in the dorm until I saw there was light coming under the bathroom door so I opened it and god, there you were, with a fucking razor blade in your hand."

They were both crying, Blaine's monologue punctured by sniffs and quiet sobs.

"You can have no idea how it felt to see that, Kurt. To see this boy who you've just accepted that you love and that you can be together and you start planning your life together and then suddenly he's in the shower, bleeding and trying to convince you he didn't want to die. I don't know if you did want to die or not, Kurt, and I don't think I want to know, but do you know what? I think I did a little. Not five minutes before I walked through that door we had our entire lives ahead of us and we could be in love and then I saw you and it shattered. I don't know if this even makes sense, but right then, all I could see was just the blood and your face when you saw me, like you felt so guilty but entirely heartbroken.

"Do you remember when term at Dalton started that first year, and I found you crying in the bathroom coz you missed your dad, and I didn't get it because I've never really loved my parents, but I cried anyway because I couldn't stand to see you in pain? Well, imagine that times a thousand because this time I knew you were crying, I knew you were _bleeding,_ because of me. And all I wanted to do was run. Run away from you because every second I looked at you my heart was breaking more and more and I just couldn't do it because I never wanted to hurt you. So when you gave me that chance, I took it. I let you walk out of that door because if I managed to hurt you so badly with one kiss, what would a relationship do to you? What if I fucked it up? I would have destroyed you. So I let you go because I thought you'd get better and I'd just be broken for the rest of my life but that was okay, because you wouldn't be in pain.

"But –" his voice cracked as he suppressed a sob, "You weren't okay when you left. You didn't get better. You were still the same Kurt I broke back in our dorm at Dalton and I was this close to leaving again, Kurt. You have no idea." He forced Kurt's chin up so they could look at each other through their tears. "Every time I try to be selfless and protect you because _I_ can't deal with it and I've never even thought if _you_ can deal with it. If I fucked it all up again, you'd be okay, because you are the strongest person I know and I can't believe it's taken me ten years to realise that I can love you and that you are not going to bleed and break. Because you were always the strong one of us, Kurt. And I am so fucking sick of trying to pretend I've been just waiting for my life for you to start and that I feel like I'm not breathing unless I'm with you and I know, I know, I know, that ten years ago I broke us both and now you have all these scars and memories and hate but I just need to know, can we be together?"

He pitched forward, sobbing, and buried his face in Kurt's stomach.

"Can we?"

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><p><strong>I physically have to leave it here a) for length purposes and b) because I am sick and it's like midnight here and I need to sleep. I'm pretty sure the last chapter will be up tomorrow, given that I have a bit of it written and i'm so close now, it seems unfair to leave the boys so uncertain about their future.<strong>

**Once again, thanks to everyone who reviews, especially the people who tell me that I make them cry. I also had an awesome review that was suggesting that maybe Kurt was in the wrong too, which was great, because I've always thought both boys were stupid for letting each other go. But as we know, they had their reasons.**

**I really really hope I did justice to this chapter, given that I've built it up so long. There were never any big secret to why Blaine let Kurt leave, just this.**

**Title is from "Gamble Everything For Love" by Ben Lee, which describes the entire chapter, really.**


	14. You And Me Won't Be Unhappy

**A/N: Well, here it is. The end.**

**It's been quite a ride. Thank you all.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Thirteen – You And Me Won't Be Unhappy<strong>

Kurt's stomach was warm and soft against his face and he burrowed into as he shook apart.

The silence stretched taught around them, waiting to be broken, shattered, for noise and light and reality to come flooding in. Right now, Blaine was in pain, yes, but he felt like it was okay. Kurt hadn't said no yet. He hadn't left his apartment and walked out of his life again. Right now, pressed against warm flesh, Blaine had hope.

He waited there a while more, his sobs eventually dying down, when Kurt's hand came down and curled in his hair. He stroked over the springy curls and Blaine's relaxed a little.

Kurt started to speak above him.

"I fell in love with someone, you know? We were together for three years. And you know what? It was exactly what people had told me love was like. He was my other half. We completed each other. I didn't even know that happened outside of movies. But it was true. Every hole I had, even the one you left, was filled by him. I don't know if you've felt anything like that, but I need to tell you that when I was with him, I was the happiest I had been for a while."

Blaine stiffened against Kurt's stomach. He wanted to tell him yes, he had felt something like that, and he had lost it and here was the only person he had ever loved talking about someone they had loved. Someone who wasn't him. Because there had never been anyone who did for him what Kurt was explaining, and Blaine wasn't sure if that gave him moral high ground or not.

Kurt sniffled from above (Blaine hadn't even realised he was crying) and took a deep breath. "We broke up, obviously. I wouldn't be here if we hadn't. Not even you could make me into a cheater, Blaine Anderson." Kurt's hand paused in Blaine's hair for a moment.

"But we broke up, for a million valid reasons and not one single right one, and I was so broken. I was just this half person now, left in a life that had been lived with two people for so long that I wasn't sure how to just be me. So I was heartbroken, and it was like I could feel that he was physically missing from me and it was then I realised that I never ever loved him anywhere near as much as I loved you."

Blaine pulled his head away from Kurt, sitting back up, the tears dried now. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kurt held out a hand in a silent gesture to shut the fuck up, please.

"Because I lost you once, before we were ever together, and it hurt much than losing the person I had loved with my entire heart for three years. Blaine, we kissed once. I can't, and won't, even begin to tell you what I shared with him. It should have been completely different. You were my first crush, the reason I knew I was gay, the first person that I had ever let into my heart. And he was my first love and my first for so many things and I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. But losing him was nothing compared to losing you. I said before that losing him was like feeling that half of my heart was gone, well when I left you, I had no heart. I had no soul. Everything I ever was belonged to you. And if you didn't want it, then I didn't either. You didn't just complete me like he did, you made me _me_.

"I've thought about this on and off for two years, trying to work out why the love everyone described as the greatest wasn't enough for me. And I've come to a conclusion. You know how people believe that somewhere out there is your perfect half? The person who will fill you up and you'll know the second you fall in love with them that this is where you're meant to be? Well I think that sometimes, people are born in love. People like me are born loving one person, and it doesn't matter if you've met them yet or not, everything you do is for them. You could meet them when you are a child, or you can meet them the day before you die, but it still comes down to the same, _you have lived your life loving this person_. That's me, Blaine. That's me loving you. Even before I realised that I actually was in love with you, I knew that I was nothing without you. When you weren't there, it was like I didn't exist.

"I thought I was going to die when I left you and went to McKinley. Everyone did. People who had never met me looked at me saw a kid who was hanging so tightly to a single thread. I think people just assumed that I would finally do it. But I didn't let myself. I don't even know why. You know I would have done it, you knew that even before you caught me that time. I still haven't worked out why I held on, but I did. And I remade myself. I couldn't be me anymore, because you still had all of me, but I had enough to try. I made myself a new heart, and I made myself a new soul and in every moment since then I've been trying to forget that you have the real me. And then I saw you on that street and I was empty again. I don't want to be empty! I want to be whole! I'd rather be broken and hurt every day than be empty for just one more second. Make it stop, Blaine. Please."

Kurt had collapsed on the bed, folding in on himself, awful soundless sobs tearing from his body. Blaine had never seen him like this. He'd seen Kurt cry too many times. He'd held him in his arms as he broke apart. But right now? This was the worst. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen was reduced to this ghastly effigy of the true Kurt Hummel, and all because of him.

"Shh, baby. Of course I'll make it stop. I'll make it okay."

Blaine scooped him up, and with a tenderness he had forgotten he was capable of, kissed Kurt on the forehead. On his cheeks. Eyes. Nose. He kissed away every tear, catching them as they fell, erasing the trace of salt they left as their reminder that pain had been felt here. He kissed everywhere and slowly, beneath him, Kurt started breathing normally again. His eyes fluttered open, and for the first time outside his dreams, Blaine saw the eyes he had loved for ten long years close as he kissed him.

They broke apart minutes later, lips wet and red, and smiled at each other. They could spend forever doing this, Blaine thought, just lying in bed memorising every inch of each other, inside and out. He begun to trace Kurt's body with his eyes, intending to get a head start on forever, when Kurt blurted out, "I'm sorry!"

"What?" Blaine sucked his lips between his teeth, bemused as he watched Kurt's face.

"I'm sorry that I was such an idiot ten years ago. I'm sorry that I didn't let you explain. I'm sorry that I overreacted to everything. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry that I didn't know how to cope without you, even know I never needed to. I am so sorry for screwing it all up." He covered his face in his hands and Blaine smiled at him.

"I forgive you." Blaine pulled Kurt's hands away from his face. "And I am sorry too. So sorry."

Kurt kissed him quickly on the lips. "I forgive you." He settled back on the bed, curling into Blaine's arms and sighing.

Blaine watched him and had that feeling of forever again. The same feeling he got when they first kissed.

"Hey, we can do this."

Kurt angled his head up to Blaine and fixed him with a wide grin.

"We can."

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><p><strong>I am sorry that it's so short, but I wanted to leave it here rather than stretch it out and add the smut or fluff most of you requested and ruin it. It just didn't fit here. That epilogue option is there though, kids, if you want.<strong>

**Blanket "thank you" to every single reviewer, or someone who favourited or alerted me. It has meant so much. I never intended or thought that this story could reach as many people as it has. I was writing it for myself, and so this tortured and destructive version of the boys could finally find each other and be happy. But now, I think I'm writing for you guys. And I could do more, I think. Not in this story, but a sequel maybe. I am not making any promises, just putting it out there.**

**Thank you all so much.**

**Title is from "Running Up That Hill" originally by Kate Bush, but covered by Placebo.**

**The soundtrack should shortly be available on my Tumblr (youhavesuchprettywords[.]tumblr[.]com) for download. Keep checking within the next couple of days. That's where i'd have all news about possible other stories too, so it'd be great if you check it out.**

**B**


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